TrpC1 Channels

In 2005, Rosario Maroto and coworkers (from the lab of Owen Hamill) at the University of Texas Medical Branch identified a component of the vertebrate mechanosensitive cation channel (MscCa) as the canonical transient receptor potential channel 1 (TRPC1) (PMID:15665854). MscCas becomes activated upon membrane stretch, a phenomena that can be replicated experimentally by applying suction to a patched pipette. Using this technique on frog oocytes and Chinese hamster ovary cells both expressing human TRPC1, Maroto and coworkers demonstrated that the mechanosenstive nature of TRPC1 has been conserved in all three species. This lack of TRPC1 diversification over 100 million years ago of vertebrate evolution corresponds to the important roles MscCas play in philological cell functions.